By Betsy Gonwa, 
Heavy, wet snow had fallen during the windless night. The branches of the pines in the front yard sagged under the weight, touching the ground. I hurried to the back yard to check the cedars. A fallen limb from the maple blocked my path, but I was relieved to see that the cedars seemed to be intact. Bowed down, but not broken. After seeing the devastation left by the pine tree on our driveway, I feared what might happen to the other trees. Picking up my shovel, I headed first to the magnolias, and pushed up at its branches to shake the snow off. I was gently pushing up on a limb when my husband interrupted me, handing me a garden rake. “I need that shovel,” he said. Of course, I thought, for it was the smallest of the shovels, and the snow was heavy. I moved toward the pine on the east side of the front yard and, using the rake, I agitated its branches, freeing them of their heavy burden, and watching them spring up.
That tree finished, I headed toward the back yard, to rescue my favorite trees, the cedars. It was still dark, as the sun had not yet risen, but in the light from the street lamps, I saw deer tracks in the snow. In the quiet darkness of the predawn, with a blanket of white under my feet, I was present to the elements in a way that I rarely am. Peacefulness and calm surrounded me, enveloped me.
I ducked under one of the cedars, holding the rake carefully. Snow-covered branches hung to the ground all around me, making a little cave that might have been a cozy spot for a deer to find shelter. The heavy snow had made it so. At one point, when I attempted to lift a branch, snow fell onto my head and began to slip down toward my neck. I pulled it out and then pulled up my hood. I attempted to lift another branch, but it did not spring up when relieved of snow. I had been too late for that one. It bowed to the ground, regal in its beauty, even broken.
Changing tack, I moved out from under the tree and began circling around. One branch at a time, I brushed the snow off of the cedar branches. One by one, they sprang up in newfound freedom. By the time I was finishing with the first cedar, my mittens were wet through, and my fingers were frozen. But I continued to gently tend the trees, branch by branch, using the back of the rake, for I had found that the tines easily tangled in the needles. This act of caring for the trees seemed intimate, like the tender moments when my granddaughter is sitting in my lap trusting me to comb through her tangled hair after her bath.
I had embarked upon this task of saving the branches for myself, for the sake of the beauty that I enjoy each time I look out at the landscape, but after a time, this act didn’t seem selfish any more. It was as if the trees and I were companions, friends. I noticed my movements beoming more and more gentle. It was as hushed as if I were in a cathedral. In fact, I was.
When and where have you encountered the presence of the Divine?
